It is almost impossible to imagine what the criminal justice system would be like without the voluntary sector. The numbers tell their own story: the prison and probation services combined employ some 43,500 staff, but 66,344 people – volunteers and employees – work for charities in this sector.

These people – on average two volunteers to every employee – provide a range of services to meet clients’ complex needs. They offer housing, help getting a job, drug and alcohol services, mentoring, advocacy, finance, benefit and debt support, mental health services and legal advice. The list goes on.

We know the prison system is in desperate need of reform and that probation services are struggling to resettle people into the community. We believe the voluntary sector is key to any reform because it is the backbone of our rehabilitation and resettlement services.

Our research on the state of the sector, published on 12 July, outlines the pressing challenges facing charities working in the criminal justice field. One charity told us it was seeing more homeless clients, more people with debts and rising alcohol and drug abuse.

More than half the charities we spoke to had seen a rise in the number of service users. They said people were in crisis, with increasingly urgent and complex needs. At the same time, they reported a reduction in support from other agencies due to cuts in funding and restrictions on who was eligible for support. They reported a lot of exhaustion and frustration in charities. One told us that because other services were stretched as well, people were “really falling through the net”.

Rather than turn people away, the voluntary sector is working overtime. Four in 10 staff are being asked to take on bigger caseloads. More than half of all organisations are recruiting more volunteers to meet the demand. Inevitably, this puts staff and volunteers under pressure and makes us concerned for their wellbeing.

Our prisons and probation services are not easy places to work. Staff from all sectors are supporting people who have experienced significant trauma and huge disadvantage. We need to make sure that staff and volunteers have the right training, skills and support. We were pleased to hear that more than half of the organisations we spoke to were already doing this. However, more needs to be done, not just to support staff but also to make prison and probation services more progressive and rehabilitative.

One charity told us that conditions in some prisons made their work difficult. “If the wings aren’t open, we can’t work,” it said. “If people are locked out, we can’t work. If people are suffering from mental health challenges and can’t get out of their cells, we can’t work.”

Money is a worry too. In this sector, charities get almost no money from public fundraising, and funding pots are dwindling at the same time as the people our sector supports are finding it harder to access the help they need.

Charities play an essential role in helping people turn their lives around, but they now face significant challenges.

Nathan Dick is head of public policy and communications at Clinks, which supports voluntary organisations working with offenders and their families.

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